Low-cost development environment for the STM32 microcontrollers

CAMBRIDGE, UK  STMicroelectronics is making low-volume design around its STM32 microcontrollers accessible, thanks to the very low-cost ST-LINK debug probe, delivered with the Atollic TrueSTUDIO IDE.

The ST-LINK debug probe together with the IDE allows low-volume designs to target a family of more than 70 ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers. The environment combines the Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 development tool, which can be downloaded free-of-charge with no limitations on code size or usage time, and ST’s ST-LINK debug probe to connect to the target via USB.

For a low initial investment, just USD21 for ST-LINK, a wider variety of design starts, including tentative and low-volume product concepts, can benefit from the high performance, low power and rich features of the STM32 family comprising more than 70 software-, pin-, and peripheral-compatible variants.

Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 uses the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) framework, and features a GNU compiler/debugger for ARM processors. Pre-compiled runtime libraries are also included in the free-of-charge Lite version of the tool.

Developers can access more extensive capabilities by purchasing Atollic TrueSTUDIO/STM32 Pro, a low-cost environment with extensive capabilities including C++ language support, PC-based build/debug tools allowing development before embedded hardware is available, graphical tools including UML diagram editors, and collaboration features such as version control and bug/task management.

The range of more than 70 STM32 devices spans package options from 36 pins to 144 pins and Flash densities from 16 to 512 Kbytes.